Gunboat Cloaks

[Biggles]

From the infocard for the Cloaking Device Mk2:

This device is suitable for mounting on gunboats and some transports [sic] class ships.

I believe that this is rather misleading, as mounting a cloak on almost every gunboat prevents it from using Capital Armour Upgrades. This seems rather unfair since no other class of ship has this constraint when using a cloak.

The average number of turrets for a gunboat is 6, which at 5 cargo space each takes 30 cargo. For many people a Capital Ship Thruster is a necessity for PvP, which takes 25 cargo space. Adding to that the 200 cargo space required by the cloak itself and the mandatory 30 cargo taken up by the shield results in a total of 285 cargo. (This excludes the Reinforced Cruise Disruptor which although useful on capital ships is not a necessity.) With the average gunboat cargo space limited to 400-480 this makes it impossible for almost every gunboat to mount even a CAU 5 (190 cargo space) with a cloak.

As far as I can see, the only gunboats capable of mounting a CAU 5 are the Order, Corsair and Bretonian ones*. None of these can mount a CAU 6 or above. Being forced to mount a HAU gives gunboats a significant disadvantage in PvP, and I do not think this is justified. Is this intentional or can it be fixed? In my opinion the easiest solution is to simply reduce the cargo space required by the cloak to 150.

*I have exluded the Nomad Gunboat as it uses the Nomad Cloak instead, and the Junker Gunship and Civilian Explorer as they require the Mk2 Advanced.

---

Aurora — Wingman — Forumlancer — ALG